Because you want to encourage third parties to keep wasting their time, money, and effort on national elections they cannot win (and even if they did, would find themselves powerless to effect any change) instead of focusing on local elections first and building up a base of support in communities that would, in the short term, have a greater effect on your day-to-day life than who the President is and, in the long term, lead to the actual possibility of national gains?

Because you want to encourage third parties to keep wasting their time, money, and effort on national elections they cannot win (and even if they did, would find themselves powerless to effect any change) instead of focusing on local elections first and building up a base of support in communities that would, in the short term, have a greater effect on your day-to-day life than who the President is and, in the long term, lead to the actual possibility of national gains?

beta_plus:Socialism only works in extremely high trust societies, and even then things can go wrong. America is simply too big and diverse to be a society like that.

I don't think socialism as a formal system of government works anywhere. Socialism as a useful toiol of civilization, on the other hand, works here and a lot of other places. Just like capitalism - it's a good idea that becomes a bad idea when it becomes an ideology.Capitalism and socialism are tools, not philosophies.

Because you want to encourage third parties to keep wasting their time, money, and effort on national elections they cannot win (and even if they did, would find themselves powerless to effect any change) instead of focusing on local elections first and building up a base of support in communities that would, in the short term, have a greater effect on your day-to-day life than who the President is and, in the long term, lead to the actual possibility of national gains?

Because you want to encourage third parties to keep wasting their time, money, and effort on national elections they cannot win (and even if they did, would find themselves powerless to effect any change) instead of focusing on local elections first and building up a base of support in communities that would, in the short term, have a greater effect on your day-to-day life than who the President is and, in the long term, lead to the actual possibility of national gains?

BUT ROMENY == OBAMA!!!

On all but maybe three issues, most related to women, yes.

War with Iran. Romney has said he will do it. Obama is trying his best to avoid it.

Romney and his neo-cons from the Bush administration think they can invade Iran with a volunteer force. Iran is 4 times the size of Iraq; 1.5 million military went into Iraq. Romney will have to draft your loved ones--not his, your loved ones--to have his profit machine bust up Iran, one of the oldest civilizations on the planet.

And why? Not just because of profit but because of what used to be called the Wolfowitz doctrine--the US will not allow the rise of another super-power or world power. And if the neo-cons don't want Iran to reach the tipping point of world power, imagine how they feel about Communist China flexing over Asia.

Iran might not be Romney's only war if the neo-cons have anything to do with it.

Because you want to encourage third parties to keep wasting their time, money, and effort on national elections they cannot win (and even if they did, would find themselves powerless to effect any change) instead of focusing on local elections first and building up a base of support in communities that would, in the short term, have a greater effect on your day-to-day life than who the President is and, in the long term, lead to the actual possibility of national gains?

BUT ROMENY == OBAMA!!!

On all but maybe three issues, most related to women, yes.

War with Iran. Romney has said he will do it. Obama is trying his best to avoid it.

Romney and his neo-cons from the Bush administration think they can invade Iran with a volunteer force. Iran is 4 times the size of Iraq; 1.5 million military went into Iraq. Romney will have to draft your loved ones--not his, your loved ones--to have his profit machine bust up Iran, one of the oldest civilizations on the planet.

And why? Not just because of profit but because of what used to be called the Wolfowitz doctrine--the US will not allow the rise of another super-power or world power. And if the neo-cons don't want Iran to reach the tipping point of world power, imagine how they feel about Communist China flexing over Asia.

Iran might not be Romney's only war if the neo-cons have anything to do with it.

Ok, while that might be the Wolfowitz doctrine, Iran is not even remotely close to becoming a world power. At best they are a moderate power in the region, basically on par with Turkey. Remember, Iraq was their counter balance up until we kicked down their house.

You DO have a point about China, but you also forget that they make boatloads of money shipping our jobs there. They may bluster about Chinese currency manipulation, needing a bigger navy, etc. but in the end its all a magic show to keep us focused away from their other hand selling out the citizenry and cashing out the treasury.

mat catastrophe:Because you want to encourage third parties to keep wasting their time, money, and effort on national elections they cannot win (and even if they did, would find themselves powerless to effect any change) instead of focusing on local elections first and building up a base of support in communities that would, in the short term, have a greater effect on your day-to-day life than who the President is and, in the long term, lead to the actual possibility of national gains?

There were a number of Libertarian and Green party people on the ballot for me on the non-Big Election items. Of course, they were running for President/Senators as well.

jso2897:beta_plus: Socialism only works in extremely high trust societies, and even then things can go wrong. America is simply too big and diverse to be a society like that.

I don't think socialism as a formal system of government works anywhere. Socialism as a useful toiol of civilization, on the other hand, works here and a lot of other places. Just like capitalism - it's a good idea that becomes a bad idea when it becomes an ideology.Capitalism and socialism are tools, not philosophies.

Tools. Exactly. And sometimes one is needed to help the other - like when bankers show up in DC and tell the President that if the People don't fork over hundreds of billions of dollars to keep their CAPITALIST bank afloat, then the whole US economy melt down.

Motherfarkers have no problem with redistribution of wealth, only the vectors,

Captain_Ballbeard:jTools. Exactly. And sometimes one is needed to help the other - like when bankers show up in DC and tell the President that if the People don't fork over hundreds of billions of dollars to keep their CAPITALIST bank afloat, then the whole US economy melt down.

Motherfarkers have no problem with redistribution of wealth, only the vectors,

Do you call reuniting kidnapped children with their parents 'redistribution'?

The 0.1% like to think of it of as being reunited with their long lost money. Totally different.

Subby, if you're gonna use a cool acronym like 'BSABSVR', you should try and figure out what it stands for, otherwise you have a sentence that ends up saying: 'both sides are bad so vote Republican, so vote Obama', which is an insult to everyone who actually submitted a good headline, but didn't get the green.

Many liberal Democrats are disappointed in Obama but this disappointment is totally their fault. They've have created an Obama of their own mind and imagination; an Obama that doesn't really exist. He was the vehicle of their hopes but only in their minds. In reality he never was an engine for real change. He is just Republican-lite; the leader of the other corporate party. Neither of the 2 major parties really represents the working man nor do they stand for fair distribution of the wealth of our nation. An Obama reelection will only at best be marginally better than a Romney victory and could be worse.

His evidence for a left-wing resurgence is pretty thin. The anti-war movement failed, the Walker recall failed, occupy failed. Sure more people are interested in radical politics than have been over the last 20 years, but they are direction-less, disorganised and bereft of ideas. Ultimately, nobody, not even the left can conceive of a realistic alternative to a global capitalism dominated by finance. The fact is that we're living in a deeply reactionary time and there are few options available, so you end up voting for moderate conservatives like Barak Obama.

Here's the thing: the two parties are constantly renegotiating their platforms to keep the balance somewhere close to 50/50 with respect to the population. If you don't like the Democratic Party platform because it isn't liberal enough, then the best thing you can do is to contribute to a Democratic supermajority. If you vote Democrat earnestly and help them get 70 Senators and 70% of congress (Alas! A pipe dream!), the party will begin to have a serious discussion about how far to the left they can step while still holding onto a majority of voters.